[albummaster]

The reason there is a 20 minute/4 track threshold is that there has to be a line drawn somewhere between albums (what this site is all about) and other types of release. If the threshold was lowered, this would cease to become an album site and open the floodgates to any type of release which would then render most of the charts on the site useless and mean rebuilding the whole site just to allow a few shorter length items to appear. I know there are people that would like to see shorter length EPs on the site, but BEA's differentiating factor is that is an album site, the whole site concept is built around this.

In the future, once the site redesign is finished and genre tagging is added then perhaps the whole thing can be re-looked at to find a way for EPs to co-exist (in a similar way to how secretdad suggested). I'm just a bit worried that if the bar is lowered, the debate then switches to singles being allowed which would move BEA far away from the original site concept and BEA would then just become a clone of other sites that already exist.

[Tap]

But I can add an EP now. It can even have EP in the title. It just has to be longer than 20 minutes (or have 5 tracks? I'm not sure I understand that part). I feel like the emphasis on albums would be strengthened if these releases could be and labeled as Single/EP, and then disallowed from the main charts but allowed in customs (and for any reputable publication who influences the rankings and who's made a list where they included a release under 20 minutes, the list can be represented accurately and the EP could simply register no points for the release, like they do once they've been flagged for deletion).

Like yeah if this was a lower priority than a huge redesign undertaking and getting genre tags set up, I don't even disagree with that. But I very strongly think the brand of the site is undercut way more with the current policy than if EP's were properly identified and excluded from ranking.

And just so I'm not just saying stuff with no practical implementation ideas, here's how I think this is possible. We can label albums as compilations. We would need to also label a release as Single/EP. Now it doesn't seem like that attribute has much impact beyond Compilation appearing on the release. We would need a bit more for this. But the attribute qualities exist. When inputting an album on a year or decade chart, albums outside of that year or decade are greyed out and cannot be put in. The EP attribute would need to trigger that for any ranked chart. And then it would also have to have the attributes of an entity flagged for deletion, where it contributes no points and creates an alert that it needs to be removed from the chart, but only on ranked charts. But I think that's it? That's still some work so I'm definitely not saying "you must do this now!" but I really do think it's possible.

[Hayden]

I've given up on this argument because everything I'm saying has either already been said, or is just plain redundant.

I do think EP's should be allowed on this website for a few reasons, but whatever.

The only thing that I think might be reasonable to change at this point is the criteria to what EP's are allowed on the site. Currently, it's either 20+ minutes, or 4+ tracks (5+? I forget), which is just silly. An EP can be 25 minutes and 2 tracks, and an EP can be 10 minutes and 10 tracks. The two don't really equate very well. I think we should get rid of the track standard... I can live with 20+ minutes, although I would prefer 15+ minutes considering the average mainstream EP is 16 minutes.

The track thing doesn't make too much sense... Tracks on some electronic EP's are simply concepts on when to break up a larger track, and sometimes don't exist whatsoever. 1 track EP's aren't too hard to come by. Hell, 1 track albums aren't too hard to come by either.
_________________
Doubles & Conch

[Silver]

Pretty much with Secretdad and Hayden sentiment-wise here as always, but yeah the argument has become pretty redundant at this point. I don't think it'd be that hard to allow EPs and stop at singles, and I think most of the time the line between them is pretty clear. Plus there are so many notable EP releases, but it is what it is.

[albummaster]

[Tap]

That seems fair to me. Sorry I can get a bit passionate in my nerdiness over data, it's what I do for work and so I can get maybe a bit overzealous about it. But I really do think that allowing the non-albums to be entered in and properly categorized for the purpose of excluding them from all main charts would help put more focus on albums as the primary currency here. But I guess it turns out that the rules are even more relaxed than I thought so the problem I thought I had was moot and I'll be getting back to building up the database. Thanks!

[sp4cetiger]